Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Courtney Trenwith of ArabianBusiness.com filed the following report on 9/16/14. A link to the story is here, and the text is pasted in below.

A female member of Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights
(NSHR) has reportedly been fined for driving herself to the hospital.

When police pulled her over, Aliyah Al Farid said she had a medical
emergency and there was no one available to drive her to the hospital so
she took her husband’s car.

The officers reportedly allowed her to continue driving. They
followed her to the hospital and waited while she saw a doctor, before
taking her to the traffic department where she was fined for driving
without a licence.

Women are unable to get a driver’s licence in Saudi Arabia, despite there being no law against women driving.

Al Farid has been arrested for driving twice previously and has
participated in campaigns to allow female drivers, but told Arabic daily
Al Hayat on this occasion it was an emergency.

“I told the traffic officers that I had to drive because it was an emergency case,” she said.“I didn’t do it on purpose and I’m not after fame or media hype. I was very sick and that was it.”

She said she also occasionally drove patients at her centre for persons with special needs when they urgent medical attention.

“We can’t leave an epileptic patient convulsing on the ground while
waiting for our male driver to come and transport him to hospital,” she
said.

“I have to get behind the steering wheel and do it.”

Al Farid has refused to sign an undertaking not to drive again,
citing the fact there is no law prohibiting women from driving; it has
become a cultural custom routinely enforced by the unofficial religious
police (haia).

Monday, September 15, 2014

Article by Hatoon Kadi, a Saudi PhD student living in London. Appeared in the English daily the Arab News on September 15, 2014. Link to the story is here, and the story is pasted below.

It has been nearly five months since I acquired my driving license. I felt
like sharing my feelings with my readers at the risk of being declared
repetitive. I know I have written so much on this issue and it might not
be a big deal for thousands of women driving cars across the world. To
me, however, it is a different experience altogether.

I can confidently claim that being able to drive has transformed my daily life.

It
is true, however that in the UK you can live without a car giving the
fact that the public transport system is excellent. Not only that it is
more environment friendly. Having said that I would like to say if you
have a family nothing beats the convenience of having your own vehicle. I
remember the time when I did not have a car, I used to abandon social
gathering, as I did not wish to drag sleepy boys off the train to the
cab and then to our home. The situation used to get ugly when I had to
drag grocery bags to my home. It really used to become an uphill task in
every sense of the word, as my house is situation on a hill and buses
don’t reach there.

I also remember running down the hill to catch the
tram and then reach the tram to see it moving in front of us, which
means waiting for the next one and be late for school, and needless to
say that my sophisticated Ph.D. student prestige was always disturbed
when the principle give that look of
“you-clumsy-late-for-school-mother.”

But now I can easily say that I
am liberated. I am in charge of my life and I have the freedom to move
around. I can see that some readers might think that it is so naive to
think that having a car is a liberating experience but for me it is
truly a huge relieve and kind of liberation. I remember back in Saudi
Arabia when relying completely on drivers or any male member of the
family to move us around was the norm. I remember how women bought cars
with their own money and then hand them to drivers who could be
manipulative and dishonest and very unprofessional but we had to put up
with it because it was our only means of moving around. Now each time I
sit in the driver’s seat I cherish it and appreciate the convenience. I
pray to God that the issue of women driving is resolved soon. It is
really killing when you are expected to be successful in life and to
contribute to the economy of the country but yet you are not allowed to
move around. —@HatoonKadi

Friday, September 12, 2014

Gulf News reports the following; a link to the story is here. Text below.

By Habib Toumi
Bureau Chief

Published: 12:35 September 10, 2014

Manama: A Kuwaiti woman was fined and her car confiscated for five days after she was apprehended for driving in Saudi Arabia.

The woman, believed to be in
her 40s, was spotted driving in Hafr Al Baten in the northern part of
the country, with her husband as her passenger, local news site Sabq
reported on Wednesday.

A traffic police patrol pulled the car over with the Kuwaiti licence plates and booked the woman for breaking the rules.

The police decided to impound
the car for five days and asked the husband to sign a pledge not to
allow his wife to drive again in the Saudi kingdom.

Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi
Arabia even though there is no legal text that bans them from driving.
However, women, if found driving, are pulled over by traffic police for
doing so without a Saudi licence. They are allowed to go home after they
sign a pledge not to drive again.

Attempts by women and their
supporters to get permission to drive have become more intense lately,
but the challenges in overcoming the stiff resistance of conservatives
are proving singularly formidable.

Both camps have been using religious, economic and social arguments to support their positions.

Last year, a tweet by Saudi
billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal in favour of allowing women to
drive in Saudi Arabia sparked a heated debate on the local blogosphere.

“Allowing women to drive will
result in saving at least 500,000 jobs held by foreign drivers and
subsequent economic and social benefits for the nation,” Al Waleed
posted on his Twitter account where he has hundreds of thousands of
followers.

The business tycoon who
insisted on the significance of reforms tweeted that the era of the
“ostrich” was over and the era of “openness” has begun, in reference to
the mythical ostriches that choose not to see problems by burying their
head in the sand when confronted with difficulties.

The remarks by Prince Al
Waleed have accentuated the arguments of the camp supporting the much
anticipated breakthrough to allow women to drive in the socially
conservative society.

The presence of thousands of
male drivers to drive mainly Saudi women and girls has been regularly
used by supporters of allowing women to drive to highlight negative
social and economic problems.

The arguments have also been boosted by “grave concerns” felt by several women when riding with taxi drivers.

The nomination of 30 women to
the Consultative Council last year has bolstered hope that the issue of
women driving will be taken up and possibly approved.

The de facto ban on women driving has been at times challenged by women, but they were accused of “stirring up public opinion”.

King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz,
who has stressed on reforms, particularly on women’s rights, since he
became ruler in August 2005, has emphasised that “balanced modernisation
compatible with Islamic values was a significant necessity”.

Follow by Email

Subscribe To

Followers

About Me

I'm a freelance writer based in Maine. I lived in Saudi Arabia for many years. I studied Arabic in college eons ago and married my college sweetheart, a fellow Arabic student. My first novel, A CARAVAN OF BRIDES, is set in Saudi Arabia. I'm working on my second novel while writing feature stories about the Middle East. I am also the co-founder and Administrative Director of the Arabic Music Retreat.